Apropos of the news story “39 high-tech luxury city buses start rolling in city” (THT, March 14, Page1), travelling in the public transport has always been a headache to the general public due to unmanaged dirty vehicles with congested space within. This is indeed a good effort put on by the Metropolitan City Transport Pvt. Ltd. to roll the high-tech luxury city buses on the 27-KM long Ring Road. This step can reduce the private cars, motorbike on the roads and it will also help reduce air pollution in the capital where the largest numbers of vehicles are concentrated. We don’t see good behaviour by drivers and conductors in the public buses. The privately-managed bus operators do not have any knowledge of hospitality with the service seekers, especially the women who have to compromise their dignity while travelling in the public buses. As the Metropolitan City Transport has also hired women drivers and conductors in its fleets of public buses women will feel a sigh of relief as these buses will provide enough space even for standing. It would be great if these luxury city buses roll up to rural areas too. Investment in these sorts of luxury buses is indeed a good step at a time when the passengers have to stand in queue for long and most of the time the public buses are crammed with more people than the actual capacity of the buses. Also, elimination of public transport which are in bad condition is essential to prevent unpleasant accidents. But the big question is whether the Metropolitan City Transport will maintain its quality of service all the time and keep its buses clean and maintain the high-tech facilities installed in the buses.

Susmita Humagain, Kavre

Suspicion

This has reference to the news story “Pokhara all set for SAARC foreign ministers’ meet” (THT, March 14, Page 5). With the rapid growth of international trade the SAARC foreign ministerial meeting will be focusing on road and air network, energy development, cooperation, control of terrorism, poverty alleviation, common trade and youth unemployment, among others.

The SAARC region is marred by terrorism and problem of youth unemployment. It is due to weak economic prosperity, good governance system and lack of connectivity among the member states. However, sad to say we still are not practicing our diplomatic relation through proper channels. This is the reason why we are not settling down many issues of our relationships. We hope this will be addressed by this event with a positive note. As we can see other regional groupings, for example ASEAN and EU, are marching towards a common economic goal to make the regions prosperous with set long-term visions. They are cooperating with each other for the common desire

of economic progress. But it is SAARC lagging behind to connect member states for economic growth. Unless the issues of connectivity with trade and commerce are tackled the very goal of the SAARC bloc will remain just a talking shop.

Saroj Wagle, Bara